Focusing on the first stanza of “Spring and All”, which begins with “By the road to the contagious hospital”, James E. Breslin discusses the movement of the poem as it descends not only with images but also on a thematic level, transcending the reader through the process of connecting the imagination with the world around them. Breslin states: “We follow the thrust of his imagination downward, through obstacles, to a new union with the physical environment.” What he means by this is that Williams, with his emphasis on the powers of the imagination, is trying to express that man can turn his environment into a powerful experience using one’s internal judgement. However, what Breslin is explaining through his article is that the first stanza of “Spring and All” is a vessel in which we should read the book in it’s entirety; a movement of man’s imaginative realm into the realm of the environment around him. “The progression in the poem is literally downward: the observer goes from “the blue / mottled clouds,” across a distant view of “broad, muddy fields,” to the quickening plant life right before him–and then penetrates even further downward, into the dark earth, as he imagines the roots taking hold again.” The clouds, as Breslin expresses, are the natural representation of imagination.
The roots, figuratively, are the representation of “real life” or the natural world. What Williams is expressing through “Spring and All” is that man’s imagination and the world around him are functioning together in harmony; and that with experimental and poetic insight, one can see how each of them function together rather than separately. The turning point in this first stanza is when spring sluggishly moves in, transcending the poem into an imaginative and supernatural ora that juxtaposes the dead and natural scene that was presented. Breslin describes this transcendence with: “But the awakened consciousness, focused sharply and including everything in the scene, discovers novelty and life, the first “sluggish / dazed” stirrings of spring. Hence poet and landscape are gradually identified–as he too grips down and begins to awaken.” With the awakening of spring, man is awakened in the realization of his relationship with the natural world around him.
From William Carlos Williams: An American Artist. Copyright 1970 by James E. Breslin.
We briefly discussed, in class, the way in which this is a poem about rootedness on the broader scale Breslin notes here: the whole poem moves downward, into the earth, the local, the ground of distinct perception. It’s a great way to view Williams’s broader project in Spring and All as he works to grip down and find a home for the regenerative powers of the imagination.